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♪ Imagine there's no heaven ♪

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♪ It's easy if you try ♪

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♪ No hell below us ♪

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♪ Above us, only sky ♪

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♪ Imagine all the people ♪

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♪ Living for today ♪

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♪ Imagine there's no countries ♪

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♪ It isn't hard to do ♪

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The study of human behavior is still in its early stages.

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In all other fields of science

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they look for the physical relationship of cause and effect.

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One of the greatest limiting factors

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is that we fail to use these same methods of evaluation

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when we look at the study of human behavior.

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Human behavior is just as lawful as anything else.

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We are not separate from nature.

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To our knowledge, nothing is self-activating.

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By this I mean that our environment

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influences our actions, our values and our behavior.

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When I refer to environment, I'm referring to

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all the interacting variables

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that a person is subjected to.

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This does not mean just their home life

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but it means the food they eat

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the books that they read

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the movies and TV that they watch

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their teachers, their role models, their religion

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their friends and the subculture that they grow up in.

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Most people don't understand just how much

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their values are influenced by their culture.

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Even notions of good and evil

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and concepts of morality are arrived at through your society.

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This method of control does not use force

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and it's been so successful

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that people no longer recognize the manipulation.

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All social systems perpetuate themselves.

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The values superimposed on people

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are there to support the system that they're in.

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If they didn't do this, they couldn't get people to fight their wars

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or defend their values.

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Patriotism is used in this way as well.

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The dominant values of any social system

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does not come from its people

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but rather, it represents the power elite.

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By this I mean the church, the military

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the banks and the corporations.

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To a large extent, they determine

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the public agenda for their own self-interests.

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They perpetuate the illusion that society

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is determined from the ground up

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with such notions as democracy and freedom.

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Most media are used

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to serve the interests of the power elite.

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What we have is managed news

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and this news

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is what creates our behaviors and our values.

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Gods and demons are still used to control behavior.

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Religion teaches us that there are good and bad people

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that people are reincarnated

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to work through their past inadequate behaviors

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and that the children must suffer the sins of their parents.

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These notions, along with other statements such as:

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"There will always be wars and rumors of wars"

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and "We will always have the poor amongst us"

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are really awful notions.

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They're outdated myths, making it really difficult

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for people to understand how their values

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are shaped by their environment.

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This situation is true for many geneticists as well.

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They attribute behavior to the genes entirely.

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Dr. Maté, who is a physician in Vancouver

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(and he's also a well-known author) states:

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"If it's all caused by genetics

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we don't have to look at our social policies.

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We don't have to look at our politics

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that disadvantage certain minority groups

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that cause them more stress, cause them more pain

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in other words, more predisposition to addiction

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and we don't have to look at our economic inequalities.

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If it's 'all genes' society doesn't have to take a hard look

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at its own attitudes and policies."

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Dr. Maté also explains

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that the hardcore drug addicts he treats, without exception

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are people who have had extraordinarily difficult lives

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and that the commonality is childhood abuse.

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In other words, these people all enter life

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under extremely adverse circumstances.

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The same scenario is found throughout studies in the US as well.

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Dr. Maté also claims "Unfortunately, my profession

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the medical profession, puts all the emphasis on genetics

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rather than the environment

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which, of course, is a simple explanation.

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It also takes everybody off the hook."

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He goes on to explain that when we put people in prison

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we are really incarcerating them for their abusive childhood.

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The Venus Project goes even further to explain

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the causes of aberrant behavior

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as being the entire social economic system

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that we live under.

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Science of behavior has not been successful

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as they look at the individual alone, without looking

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at the causes in the environment

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that are responsible for the individual's behavior.

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The idea that the effort should be concentrated

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on the individual alone is grossly inadequate.

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If we don't identify the appropriate conditions

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responsible for aberrant behavior within the society

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we'll continue to have the same problems over and over again.

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The difference between a priest, a thief and a banker

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(although I see very little difference between them)

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[Applause]

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the difference isn't found in their genes

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but in the environment that they're raised under.

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For example, in the ancient Roman times

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you could find entire families going to see

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Christians being fed to lions, and the little boy may say

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"Daddy, can we go see Christians being fed to lions next week?"

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and the father may say "If you behave yourself."

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Is the little boy bad or insane? No, he's merely reflecting

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the society of his times.

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This is also true with the military man of today

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who is indoctrinated to kill or drop bombs on entire villages.

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You may think he loses sleep over this, but no, that's not the case.

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Most of the time, they're given medals and reinforced for such actions.

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The pilot reflects the values of his culture

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just as the Roman family did.

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What we call conscience and morality

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are not inborn traits

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but are determined by culture, geography and the times.

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If a young Nazi boy was raised as a baby

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in Nazi Germany, he'd be a Nazi.

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If you were to approach the headhunters of the Amazon

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and said to one "Oh my gosh!

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You have ten shrunken heads in your hut. Don't you feel terrible?"

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He may say "Yes, I do. My brother has 20."

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People also felt that if you took a Chinese baby

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and an English baby and tried to teach them Chinese

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that the Chinese baby would learn Chinese much faster

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because all his ancestors spoke Chinese all through history.

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They even tried this and they found that it wasn't the case at all

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that they both learned at the same rate.

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One does not inherit acquired knowledge. You have to learn this.

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One is not born with bigotry and prejudice

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and patriotism or anger and self-centeredness.

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These are nurtured through the environment.

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If one is born with a larger brain

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with more neurotransmitters, you can learn how to be stupid faster.

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[Applause]

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It just depends on who you associate with.

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There really is nothing in the brain that can distinguish significance

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or relevance. That's acquired by experience only.

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Parents have an understanding of this

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when they forbid their young children to play with other kids

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who they feel are a bad influence.

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When parents want their kids to become a physician

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they put them in a medical environment.

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If they want them to learn how to build bridges

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they put them in an engineering environment.

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People often say "I know two children.

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One is a thief (they're both from the same family)

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and one is a minister.

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So if it's environment

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that causes behavior, then how do you account for that?"

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Well, people have to go to school for years

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to be able to work on a jet engine

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but they let anyone raise kids

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and children are far more complex than any jet engine.

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Very often parents pit one child against the other

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and they things like "Why can't you behave like your sister?

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She picks up everything. She does all her homework on time."

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When that sister falls down the stairs

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the little boy is going to have a slight grin on his face.

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It's never from the same environment

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even though the children come from the same household.

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Our environmental influences

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have become so engrained in our habits, our feelings and our outlook

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that we often think it's human nature.

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There really is no such thing as human nature.

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[Applause]

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What there is, is human behavior and that's always been changed

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otherwise, we'd still be living in caves.

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People often think that jealousy is part of 'human' nature

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and someone once tried to back this up by saying

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"Every time I pick up my cat, my dog growls."

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This is really easy to overcome. If you give your dog a treat

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every time before you pick up your cat

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then your dog wags its tail.

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Every time you go for your cat, your dog will wag its tail.

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If this was really innate behavior

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then your dog would never wag its tail under these circumstances.

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Dogs can be trained to rescue people

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to be ferocious

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or they can be trained to lead the blind across the street.

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They could come from the same breed or even from the same litter

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but the difference in behavior is due to their training.

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Excuse me a minute.

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Our culture does not evaluate human behavior in this way.

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If they did, they'd begin to ask very different questions.

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They'd begin to want to know

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how they would begin...

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Excuse me, they'd come to very different conclusions

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about how society should be run

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and why people behave the way they do.

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They would begin to ask what it is in our culture

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that generates greed and racism and bigotry

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and serial killers and aberrant behavior.

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As I mentioned, all the blame is put on the individual today

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instead of on the culture that they're raised under.

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If the conditions that generate these values remain unaltered

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in spite of all the urgings of the priest

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or all the laws of the politicians

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or all the romantic words of the poet

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the aberrant behavior will persist.

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Whatever better values we aspire to

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or whatever better behavior people aspire to

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cannot be realized when we have hunger, unemployment

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deprivation, war and poverty.

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People deprived of income will do whatever is necessary

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to provide for the necessities of life

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if not for themselves, for their families.

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Their values maybe be exemplary

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but their behavior will reflect the reality of the situation.

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After World War II, for example

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you could find the most respectable German families

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fighting over scraps of food.

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Eventually, we will understand

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that most forms of so-called 'criminal' behavior

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which fill our jails

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are generated by the scramble for money and property

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in an age of often contrived scarcity of the monetary system

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and the values that it generates.

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Thank you. [Applause]